The Wound

Thrashing. Your arms find wreckage – planks, debris, whatever floats – and lash it together with shaking fingers. You drag yourself up. Finally, air. But not safe yet. The raft drifts. Shore refuses to arrive. Legs dangle in dark water and your mind invents the deep. Something cold brushes your feet. You flinch, certain the deep has finally come for you. Your whole life, this flinching. Not once did you ask if you can stand.

The Path

It comes before you're ready. You could test the depth. But the raft is familiar. The water is not. So you don't. You grip the wood tighter until your arms surrender. Wood slips from your fingers. You reach – gone. You sink. Water closes over mouth. Over your eyes. The dark takes you. Your lungs burn with held breath. Then your feet find stone. The shock of contact. The insult of it. You wait for the ground to drop away. It doesn't. You press down, testing. It holds. Your knees tremble with the unfamiliar weight of your body. The ground was there all along. You stand. Water streams from your hands. The terror that ruled your life barely reaches your chest. The temptation is shame – years surrendered to a depth that never existed. But standing taught what thrashing never could: how to bear your weight. That the ground was always willing to meet you. The raft was never your rescue. The sinking was.

The Shadow

You stood. Others do not. The Saint of the Raft touches shifting wood. His fingers whiten, then fuse to planks. He touched bottom once, years ago, in calmer water. His foot found stone, and for one moment he felt his own weight, and nothing beneath it. His knees buckled as his spine protested a load it had never known. He pushed off hard and never let himself sink again. Now he builds his life on the raft – extending and adorning what he refuses to leave. His joints lock. His shoulders hunch into the shape of holding on – permanent now. He dies fused to the wood, lungs full of air, in water that never rose past his ribs. His feet dangle six inches from the bottom. They always did. The Shallow-Drowned touched bottom once. Her heartbeat, suddenly audible, was more than she could bear. Her weight - hers alone to carry. The moment her feet found stone, silence became roar and self became too sharp. She has not stopped moving since. Not swimming towards anything – just swimming. Her arms know only the rhythm that keeps the stillness behind. She passes floating wood but does not reach for it. To grip would be to pause. She drowns mid-stroke, arms locked in reaching. The water that killed her never rose past her waist.

The Cut